KFA2 GTX 1070 bad heatsink connection

gaffers

Honorable
Jun 30, 2015
8
0
10,510
About 18 months ago I took the stock cooler from my KFA2 GTX 1070 and attached a Kraken G10/X31. I didn't need to remove the backplate or use a shim for this. All was well.

I've picked up a GTX 1080 and am trying to get my 1070 back to it's original config. Thing is, despite having all of the correct screws stored and tightening them all up evenly, the heatsink is barely touching the GPU once I have it all hooked up. The thermal compound isn't even being flattened out, and it's running at 55C at idle.

I know this is really vague, and I'm clutching at straws hoping that someone here will see this and say 'ah this happened to me and it turned out I'd forgotten...'. There's no way that the cooler would have been bent out of shape or anything is there? It all looks absolutely fine, and I've done this a couple of times with other cards without issue.

It's driving me mad. I could put in a shim but I fear that a potential buyer would be put off.